Quick-Tip: Leveraging the Long Tail

With the evolution of search technologies like google instant leveraging long tail keyword data is becoming more and more important. It’s a lesser understood concept that the better portion of business conversions (both macro and micro) are prompted from long tail search. The truth is that innovations in search are allowing consumers to get to their final destinations faster. For example, a user wants a new pair of shoes… before instant

With the evolution of search technologies like google instant leveraging long tail keyword data is becoming more and more important. It’s a lesser understood concept that the better portion of business conversions (both macro and micro) are prompted from long tail search. The truth is that innovations in search are allowing consumers to get to their final destinations faster.

For example, a user wants a new pair of shoes… before instant search they might have typed the keyword shoes into a search engine, thenrunning shoes, maybe if that wasn’t specific enough they may have searched for women’s running shoes.

So long tail keywords are ultimately less popular and more specific, often making them less expensive to purchase in keyword search. Another advantage is that if you have an understanding of your competition’s long tail as well as how engaging and popular they are you can take advantage of smart keyword buys as well as cultivating content that will speak to your audience’s interests.

If you take a look at the example below I’ve used a PRO Advanced account to look for keywords for Aldoshoes.com. Below are step-by-step directions on how to find these insights. If I were a shoe marketer I’d be interested in the highlighted keywords for search marketing and content creation.

Search for a domain

Select the Engaging Long Tail Keywords filter

Note the number of displayed keywords (you can export this list to CSV)

About Lindsey Mark:Lindsey Mark works in Client Relations at Compete and is responsible for the strategic development of client retention and support policies for compete.com, with a focus on education and training efforts.
She graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY so she's a certified technology junkie and open source advocate. When she's not thinking about marketing or training digital 007's at compete, she's doing yoga & blogging about gluten-free diet and lifestyle. Find Lindsey on Twitter as @linji, Google Plus as Lindsey Mark or connect with her via LinkedIn.

Google instant changed the search funnel. Instead of searching through pages of results that weren’t quite what you wanted, though many clicked through them anyway, the suggestions feature from Google instant helps users get to their end result faster.

If you’re competing against competitors with higher search budgets it’s important to understand which long tail keywords are driving the highest engagement. Given this information you can cater your content and spend toward words that your prospective audience is most interested in. It’s good that you’re looking at the long tail and invested in this strategy, in my experience working with marketers this is not always the case.

Lindsey, how does this help in terms of defining SEO words to pursue? It appears that one targeted term could result in an umbrella affect with multiple related terms. What this data in compete help to explain this to an advertiser?

Jeanne, this type of report makes it easier to understand which longtail keywords are driving engagement – not just volume. Using this information, publishers can better understand what types of content hold the audience’s attention (focusing on creating more engaging content) and additionally better target properly aligned advertisers. At the end of the day, the head and brand keywords will constitute for a primary portion of visits from people aware of or familiar with your brand, where as strengthening content around the longtail should help build familiarity with new visitors.

Nathan

I found this a really interesting read. Leveraging Long Tail keywords can be incredibly useful due to the lower price. I do feel there is a limit however as you get more abstract there is much less return of investment. Could you comment on that?